South Korea: Too Good to Leave?

Participants at the recent gathering in North Korea of families separated by the division between North and South Korea.

A record low number of South Koreans left to live overseas last year.

Is that because there’s no better place to live?

Just 302 people registered last year as emigrants before leaving the country, down from 538 in 2012, according to foreign ministry data released earlier this month. The latest number is the lowest since at least 1984, the first year the ministry has records for, when a total of 31,111 left the country.

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Migration experts say improved living conditions have contributed to the continued downward trend, but increasingly higher hurdles for acquiring a green card in the U.S. – the most popular destination for Korean emigrants – and work permits for more advanced economies have also led to the decline in people moving overseas.

The latest number includes just those South Korean citizens leaving the country to seek residency elsewhere, but not children adopted by couples abroad or those who converted their student or work visas into permanent residency while staying overseas.

The number of people converting their visas overseas also fell by nearly half to 8,416 from a year earlier, the lowest level since 2002.

Some in the national media responded with pride, describing the trend as a reflection of the rise in South Korea’s international status.

For some Koreans, migration is closely associated with painful and often humiliating years in the country’s history, ranging from the mass emigration to the Russian Far East and Northeastern China in the 19th century, to the forced servitude during the years of Japanese occupation from 1910-1945. Tens of thousands of miners and nurses were also sent to postwar West Germany in return for funds that helped South Korea’s economy take off in the 1960s.

The net migration rate has turned positive since 2005, meaning there are more immigrants than emigrants, according to Oh Jung-eun, a researcher at IOM Migration Research & Training Center in Goyang, South Korea.

Over 70,000 foreigners in 2012 entered South Korea on a permanent resident visa, more than double from a year earlier, according to latest available official customs data.”People often say a country’s level of prestige has influence on migration. I don’t think it’s a huge factor,” said Ms. Oh.

Experts admit few recent studies exist on the subject, due to dwindling emigrant numbers in recent years.

The foreign ministry declined to provide an analysis for the newly released data.

The most popular destination for South Koreans has been the U.S. since 1984, according to the ministry data. Last year close to 80% of emigrants headed to the U.S., with Canada and Australia trailing.